they had become so accustomed under the yoke of the British.
Despite such popular support for a sweeping bill of rights, many of independent America's first politicians disregarded the need for any such amendments to the newly-framed Constitution. The Federalists thought their Constitution sufficient as it was. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist number 84, "The constitution is itself in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, a Bill of Rights." (p. 438) Many of those who acknowledged the document's imperfections argued for the need to amend it only as the need arose. Also, the Federalists were suspicious of the Antifederalists, many of whom refused to ratify the Constitution unless it were accompanied by a promise of a forthcoming bill of rights. The "Antis," said many Federalists, did not really believe in a bill of rights, but were craftily using the possibility of a bill's passage as a threat to sabotage the entire Constitution, which they viewed as a hopelessly flawed document that gave far too little power to the individual states. Political maneuvering aside, almost the entire Constitutional Convention of 1787 believed that a bill of rights was simply unnecessary.
Fortunately, at least one framer believed strongly enough in the need for a bill to raise the issue on September 12, 1787, following a gruelling summer marked by compromise. This politician was not James Madison, curiously enough, but rather George Mason of Virginia, who said that he "wished the plan had been prefaced by a bill of rights" because this would "give great quiet to the people." A motion to prepare a bill of rights was unanimously defeated, however, and the matter w
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